Don Wagner is at it again!

Is Orange County Picking Another Coronavirus Mask Fight With Gov. Newsom?

—Voice of OC

     Orange County might be picking another fight with Gov. Gavin Newsom over the state’s coronavirus restrictions after Supervisor Don Wagner hinted that county officials might not enforce the guidelines. 

     The state’s reopening guidelines under a four-tiered system announced earlier this month allows numerous retailers to continue operating at limited capacities. 

     When OC moved to Tier Two last Tuesday, it allowed restaurants, gyms, churches and movie theaters to resume indoor operations at limited building capacities. 

     “This board, back in May, unanimously approved our business reopening — our business opening guidelines,” Wagner said at Tuesday’s public supervisors meeting. 

     “I raise that because we are hearing about other counties — San Diego county is considering whether it passes or not, but it’s considering a resolution today … to indicate there will not be enforcement in San Diego county of the state’s mask mandate,” Wagner said. 

     On Monday, San Diego Supervisor Jim Desmond said he’s going to push San Diego to not enforce any of the coronavirus guidelines, including masks. He said the guidelines shift too much and are too difficult to follow for struggling business owners. 

     Wagner said OC is pretty much there. 

     “I want to make sure our public knows that we essentially got there in May. Do what is in the guidelines and what the industry recommends in respect to protecting yourselves, your employees and your customers,” he said. 

     Yet, Wagner noted the state rules still apply. 

     “The state rules are still going to apply. There’s nothing we can do about those. Nevertheless those guidelines are there.” 

     The reopening guidelines adopted earlier in the year don’t specifically address the use of masks. Instead, the guidelines offer seven bullet points of general advice to businesses, like “have a plan in place” if a large number of workers get infected. 

     Instead of offering specifics, the guidelines point to a slew of documents from the California Department of Public Health, which spell out masks for workers and customers in nearly all businesses. 

     Wagner, along with Supervisor Chairwoman Michelle Steel criticized OC’s previous mask mandate from former health officer Dr. Nichole Quick, which was issued during the Memorial Day Weekend reopenings. 

     After receiving threats over the mask order, Quick abruptly resigned in early June.

     A few days later, Dr. Clayton Chau — now the permanent health officer — walked the order back. 

     Virus infections eventually soared after the mask mandate was repealed until another Gov. order closed down larger venues back in July. Deaths continue to steadily increase from those spikes.

. . .

     UC Irvine epidemiologist Andrew Noymer predicted there will be 2,000 virus deaths by the end of the year. [There's about 1100 now.]

     Hospitalizations remain plateaued around 200…. [continue reading]

9-15: “it’ll start getting cooler, just watch”—Trump's prediction ignores science

Georges Gaudy's poster shows us the logo of the
3 rifles held by an elegant woman on a bike. C. 1900

✅ Californians are testing positive for COVID-19 at the lowest rate on record -- As the Golden State faces a triple threat of respiratory risks — destructive wildfires, toxic air quality and a deadly pandemic — there is a faint glimmer of hope. Laura J. Nelson in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/15/20

✅ In California, Trump continues to deny climate change is real: ‘It will start getting cooler’ -- As wildfires raging through the West force millions of voters to confront the consequences of a warming planet, the presidential race became intensely focused Monday on climate change.... Evan Halper, Noah Bierman in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/15/20

✅ Climate Scientists Reject Trump’s Prediction “It’ll Start Getting Cooler” In California -- Scientists, and many Californians enduring this summer’s smoky and sweltering heat, wish President Donald Trump’s latest prediction — that “it’ll start getting cooler, just watch” — would come true. The problem? There’s nothing to back it up. Chris Nichols PolitiFact California via Capital Public Radio -- 9/15/20

✅ Trump visit punctuates growing divide over main cause of historic wildfires in Western states -- California seems helpless to break a cycle of catastrophic wildfires as it suffers another year of massive destruction, and the fault lines over climate change and forest management are growing as the fall campaign season gets underway. Colby Bermel Politico -- 9/15/20

✅ Jerry Brown on a California Exodus: ‘Tell Me: Where Are You Going to Go?’ -- Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, could barely make out the mountains in the distance from his ranch in the city of Williams on Sunday. Every few minutes, he picked up his phone to check the latest air quality reading. “Unhealthy,” he said. Mr. Brown, who served over 45 years in state government and politics, has been warning about this day for years. Adam Nagourney in the New York Times$ -- 9/15/20

✅ L.A. deputies tackled and arrested a reporter. Her videos contradict their claims about the incident -- As Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies tackled Josie Huang to the street on Saturday night, the reporter for NPR affiliate KPCC screamed repeatedly she was a journalist. Deputies arrested her anyway, leaving her with scrapes, bruises, a five-hour stay in custody — and an obstruction charge that carries up to a year in jail. Tim Elfrink in the Washington Post$ -- 9/15/20

✅ Appeals court says Trump can deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants; challenge certain -- A federal appeals court decided 2 to 1 Monday that the Trump administration may deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants who previously received temporary protected status for humanitarian reasons. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/15/20

✅ Top Trump health appointee Michael Caputo warns of armed insurrection after election -- A top communications official for the administration’s coronavirus response urged President Trump’s supporters to prepare for an armed insurrection after a contested election and accused government scientists of “sedition” in a Facebook Live chat that he described in detail to The Washington Post on Monday. Yasmeen Abutaleb, Lena H. Sun, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman in the Washington Post$ Sharon LaFraniere in the New York Times$ -- 9/15/20

✅ Report: Guided Pathways Show Progress

—Inside Higher Ed

     Colleges need to engage faculty and incorporate experiential learning to continue improving guided pathways programs, report finds.

✅ U of Michigan Seeks Court Order to End Strike

—Inside Higher Ed

     …Graduate students have been refusing to teach classes, hold discussion sections and do some research since the strike began Sept. 8. The union has also asked faculty members and undergraduates to not hold or attend class in solidarity with the strike….

✅ Distracted Minds: Why Your Students Can’t Focus

—CHE

     Not only have we always been distracted; we have always been unhappy about it. Here’s Part 1 of a new series on distraction in the college classroom, and what to do about it.

✅ How One Word Led to an Uproar

—CHE

     …And it sounds a bit like the n-word. The resemblance isn’t exact: The first vowel is a long “a” rather than a short “i,” and there’s no “r” sound at the end. It’s more like “nay-ga.” But it’s similar enough that, when it’s said rapidly and repeatedly, and heard out of context, an English speaker could mistake it for the racist slur. That is how several of Patton’s students apparently heard it in a class on August 20, and they complained to the administration. The complaint led to Patton’s removal from the course.

     When a video of Patton saying the word was posted online, the general reaction wasn’t outrage at Patton but bafflement at how what he said could have prompted his ouster….

9-14: Trump's indoor, mask-free Nevada rally: "Shameful, dangerous and irresponsible," says Governor

Leonetto Cappiello, 1903

✅Skelton: How politics and police unions stopped bills to hold bad cops accountable -- It wasn’t good government. But it was probably good politics. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/14/20

✅Warmer. Burning. Epidemic-challenged. Expensive. The California Dream has become the California Compromise -- California has become a warming, burning, epidemic-challenged and expensive state, with many who live in sophisticated cities, idyllic oceanfront towns and windblown mountain communities thinking hard about the viability of a place they have called home forever. For the first time in a decade, more people left California last year for other states than arrived. Heather Kelly, Reed Albergotti, Brady Dennis and Scott Wilson in the Washington Post$ --

 

✅Trump’s California visit to spotlight political divides over climate change, coronavirus -- Ahead of President Trump’s visit to wildfire-ravaged California on Monday, Democrats charged over the weekend that his disregard for basic science had contributed to the worsening annual conflagrations, as well as to the still-uncontrolled spread of COVID-19. Laura King in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/14/20

 

✅‘Shameful, dangerous and irresponsible’: Nevada governor lashes Trump for indoor rally against state rules -- Shortly before President Trump took the stage on Sunday night in Henderson, Nev., for his first indoor rally in months, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak blasted the president for flouting the state’s coronavirus restrictions by packing hundreds of supporters, many without masks, into a building. Timothy Bella in the Washington Post$ -- 9/14/20

Leonetto Cappiello, 1902

✅In Visiting California, Trump Confronts a Scientific Reality He Denies

—NYT

✅WHO official: Europe headed for surge in deaths in October, November

—WashPo

 

✅Duquesne Suspends Professor Who Used N-Word in Class

—Inside Higher Ed

     … In one of the videos, the professor, Gary Shank, says, “I’m giving you permission to use the word, OK? Because we’re using the word in a pedagogical sense. What’s the one word about race that we’re not allowed to use?”

     “I’ll give you a hint. It starts with ‘N.’ … It’s even hard to say, OK? But, I’ll tell you the word, and again, I’m not using it any way other than to demonstrate a point. Fair enough?”….

     [Did he "use" the word? He did not. See.]

 

✅Spring Planning Has Begun. Here’s What Colleges Are Thinking So Far.

—CHE

     Colleges that have announced spring plans are mostly sticking to their strategies from the fall, be they in person, remote, or hybrid.

Black at UC Berkeley. Plus: we're the weirdest people in the world

JOB rolling papers are a popular brand
of cigarette paper produced by Republic Tobacco
in Perpignan, France.

✅Black at UC Berkeley: Professor Tyrone Hayes on discrimination in academia -- In a nation where Black people make up fewer than 5% of full-time college and university professors, UC Berkeley biology professor Tyrone Hayes stands as an exception. But the road has been hard and even at Cal, with its long history at the center of social justice movements, he’s still fighting for equal treatment. Ethan Baron in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 9/13/20

 

✅Willie Brown: Six reasons Joe Biden is likely to win the election -- The polls are beginning to show a consistent trend that has Joe Biden waxing President Trump’s wig. Willie Brown in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/13/20

 

✅150 million dead trees could fuel unprecedented firestorms in the Sierra Nevada

—LA Times

✅Why Are We in the West So Weird? A Theory
—NYT
     In a groundbreaking new book, “The WEIRDest People in the World,” an anthropologist argues that people from Western countries have a unique psychology

 

9-13: is the war against the plastics lobby "unwinnable"? Milton Friedman reconsidered. Cal lawmakers are asshats.

A grisette is a variety of beer originating 
from the mining regions along the border
of France and Belgium. The Gay Grisette 
is a musical comedy by George Dance
with music by Carl Kiefert, first staged in 1898

✅If California won't enact a plastic waste overhaul, will anyone?
—Politico
     SAN FRANCISCO — The plastic waste revolution died in the California Legislature this year.
     Environmentalists have pinned their hopes on the nation's most populous state ever since China rejected American recyclables two years ago, literally dropping the problem on the public's doorstep by forcing cities to raise garbage fees and ban more plastics from recycling bins.
     California's working solution: Transform the entire recycling chain by cracking down on America's love affair with single-use plastic materials that have reliably contained meals, snacks and beverages for decades.
     Such legislation would seem a slam dunk in California, where Democrats have unprecedented supermajority control of the Legislature and have long made the state a national leader on recycling and climate change. But intense lobbying from container manufacturers, retailers and the plastics industry — coupled with legislative mismanagement — doomed the proposal for the second straight year.
     If California can't solve plastic waste, who can?.... 

✅Plastic waste cuts probably headed to California ballot as advocates give up on Legislature -- After the California Legislature killed bills designed to combat plastic pollution for the second year in a row, environmentalists say they’ve concluded the fight might be unwinnable at the heavily lobbied state Capitol. Instead, they’ve resolved to take the battle to voters, with an initiative aimed at the 2022 ballot. Dustin Gardiner in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/13/20

✅Will This Be a Lost Year for America’s Children?

—NYT

     School in the United States is nowhere near normal this fall. Most students are not walking through schoolhouse doors, sitting at desks next to their classmates or meeting their new teachers face to face. They’re at home, trying to learn through screens. (This is even more likely to be the case if the students live in cities or suburbs.) If they’re lucky, they have a laptop or a tablet and a fast internet connection — the bare minimum that remote education requires. If not, they may be cut off from school through no fault of their own or of their families. According to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research group, students in high-poverty districts are the most likely to start the year with fully remote learning.

     The debate over what form school should take this fall foundered amid political division and uncertainty....

 

✅A Free Market Manifesto That Changed the World, Reconsidered

—NYT

     [On Milton Friedman’s libertarian economics; inspired “greed is good”]

✅Shinzo Abe Vowed Japan Would Help Women ‘Shine.’ They’re Still Waiting.

—NYT

     Women remain largely shut out of management jobs, and many take part-time work, deSpite policies that the prime minister said would elevate their standing in society.

 

✅The U.S. shows all the signs of a country spiraling toward political violence

By Rachel Kleinfeld

It’s not too late to bolster our democracy’s resilience and pull back from the brink.

—WashPo

      [N.B.]

From Rough&Tumble

 

Bourgeois was an absinthe brand during the
Belle Epoque

✅Neighborhood group wins round in suit with UC Berkeley over impact of rising student population -- The California Supreme Court is allowing a neighborhood group to sue UC Berkeley for allegedly failing to consider and reduce the local impacts of an enrollment increase of more than 8,000 since 2005. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/13/20

 

✅Trump to Visit California After Criticism Over Silence on Wildfires -- After weeks of public silence about the wildfires devastating the West Coast, President Trump scheduled a visit to California on Monday, where he will join local and federal fire and emergency officials for a briefing on the crisis. Annie Karni in the New York Times$ -- 9/13/20

 

✅‘Terrible role-modeling’: How California lawmakers flouted pandemic safety practices -- As the end-of-session frenzy gripped the state Legislature in late August, pandemic no-nos spiked: Lawmakers gathered indoors in large numbers and huddled closely, let their masks slip below their noses, smooshed together for photos and shouted “Aye!” and “No!” when voting in the Senate, potentially spraying virus-laden particles at their colleagues. Samantha Young, Rachel Bluth in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/12/20

 

✅Trump visa restrictions add obstacle to California winery harvest season: no international interns -- Around this time every year, thousands of young winemakers-in-training from countries like Australia, Chile, South Africa and Italy descend on the Bay Area to participate in a long-standing, international wine industry tradition: the harvest internship. Esther Mobley in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/12/20

✅Today's OC Covid numbers: 170 new cases; 0 new deaths.

9-12: It is you, you, you, oh yeee-aaah! An OC College has a Covid outbreak, but OC health officials won't say which. It took Trump 3 weeks to notice that the West is on fire.

Producer Chris Blackwell, 1972

✅OC Public Health Officials Won’t Say What OC College Has a Coronavirus Outbreak While Enforcement Questions Surface
—Voice of OC
     An Orange County college has now seen a coronavirus outbreak, but county public health officials won’t say which college or university it is, yet.
     “One college had 3 or more cases within a 2 week period of time,” said county Health Care Agency Medical Director Dr. David Nunez.
     Agency officials are mulling over naming the college.
     “An internal discussion is in process and we have not reached a determination at this time,” said agency spokesman Ed Mertz in a Friday email.
     In comparison, Los Angeles County lists all outbreaks at businesses and schools throughout the county.
     Nunez also said there hasn’t been an outbreak at elementary schools that have reopened classrooms under the state’s waiver process.
     Meanwhile, all Orange County schools could have the ability to reopen classrooms in a couple weeks, but it’s unclear who’s overseeing enforcement of the state coronavirus guidelines…. 

✅With California ablaze, Newsom blasts Trump administration for failing to fight climate change -- Standing among charred trees in Oroville, Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted that California will do more to fight climate change and took the Trump administration to task for its policies that reduce environmental protections. Taryn Luna in the Los Angeles Times$ Sophia Bollag and Dale Kasler in the Sacramento Bee$ Rachel Becker CalMatters Alexei Koseff in the San Francisco Chronicl$ Fiona Kelliher in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 9/12/20

 

Kovilpatti is an industrial city and special
grade municipality in Thoothukudi
District in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu

✅The West is on fire. It took Trump 3 weeks to mention it -- During that time, Trump tweeted, golfed, held news conferences and appeared at campaign rallies. He visited Louisiana in late August after Hurricane Laura killed 27 people, saying he wanted "to support the great people of Louisiana, it's been a tremendous state for me." Carla Marinucci Politico -- 9/12/20

 

✅Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19 -- The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals. Dan Diamond Politico -- 9/12/20

 

✅Here’s how Joe Biden would combat the pandemic if he wins the election -- Joe Biden has created a war-cabinet-in-waiting on the coronavirus pandemic, with major figures from the Obama, Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations drafting plans for distributing vaccines and personal protective gear, dramatically ramping up testing, reopening schools and addressing health-care disparities. Yasmeen Abutaleb and Laurie McGinley in the Washington Post$ -- 9/12/20

✅Toots Hibbert, a Father of Reggae, Is Dead at 77

—NYT

     The first to use the word reggae on a record, he sang in a soulful tone and wrote songs with subtle social commentary, helping bring the sounds of Jamaica to the world.

     Although Mr. Hibbert never attained the same level of global fame as Bob Marley, he was immensely popular in Jamaica and was adored by critics and fellow musicians for a body of work that helped establish some of reggae’s fundamentals....

9-11: Was the novel coronavirus on the loose in Los Angeles way back in December? Atlas slugged. Cal State online in Spring. The college crowd much prefers Biden

✅Biden Beats Trump in Higher Ed Contributions

—Inside Higher Ed

     Though the nation finds itself deeply divided, it’s clear whom employees at the nation’s higher education institutions are supporting financially in the presidential race.

     According to federal elections records, those who listed their employer as a college or university have given Democratic candidate Joe Biden about $4.9 million in contributions, more than five times as much as the $890,000, including donations from for-profit college executives, that they have given President Trump.

 

✅Mental Health Needs Rise With Pandemic

—Inside Higher Ed

     Several recent surveys of students suggest their mental well-being has been devastated by the pandemic’s social and economic consequences, as well as the continued uncertainty about their college education and postcollege careers. Still reeling from the emergency closures of campuses across the country during the spring semester and the sudden shifts to online instruction, students are now worried about the fall semester and whether campuses that reopened for in-person instruction can remain open as COVID-19 infections spread among students and panicked college administrators quickly shift gears and send students who'd recently arrived back home.

 

✅Cal State to Stay Virtual in Spring 2021

—Inside Higher Ed

     …All 23 campuses of the California State University system will continue to operate primarily with virtual instruction during the spring semester of 2021.  

     System officials announced the plans for the academic term beginning next January in an email to the university Wednesday….

 

Virudhunagar is a town and the admin-
istrative headquarters of the
Virudhunagar district in the Indian 
state of Tamil Nadu.

✅Slouching Toward Equity: The lonely task of the chief diversity officer
—CHE
     We will remember this summer.
     To remember it will hurt, because what we have gone through, what we are still going through, involves a lot of pain. It is that very pain that has pushed the summer of 2020 deep into the soft tissue of our collective memory, that has made it stick to the walls of unforgetting. As with any moment of great and terrible political possibility, though, how we will remember all this — as a turning point, good or bad, or as a squashed carcass on the highway of historical sameness — is up to us, all of us, and what we do now. And, if nothing else, the mass protests for racial justice have been a painfully clear message that something needs to be done....

 

From Rough&Tumble:

✅The coronavirus may have reached Los Angeles even before China announced its outbreak -- Was the novel coronavirus on the loose in Los Angeles way back in December, before the World Health Organization was even aware of an unusual cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China? A new analysis of medical records from UCLA hospitals and clinics suggests the answer might be yes. Karen Kaplan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/10/20

 

✅Fires, Blackouts and Toxic Air: This Is Climate Change in California -- Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face. Thomas Fuller and Christopher Flavelle in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/20

 

✅False Rumors That Activists Set Wildfires Exasperate Officials -- Officials dealing with catastrophic fires on the West Coast have had to counter social media rumors that the blazes were set by antifascist activists, publicly pleading that people verify information before sharing it. Despite their efforts, misinformation about the origin of the fires — which have killed at least 15 people and consumed millions of acres — continues to spread on Facebook and Twitter. Kate Conger, Davey Alba and Mike Baker in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/20

 

✅Fraud likely driving suspicious spike in unemployment claims -- California's unemployment agency acknowledged Thursday that a sharp spike in continued Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims — which more than doubled in just two weeks, according to new federal data — appears to be related to a spate of fraud plaguing the department. Katy Murphy Politico -- 9/11/20

Veluthur is a village in Thrissur district 
in the state of Kerala, India.

✅Scott Atlas, pandemic adviser to Trump, slammed by Stanford health experts -- Dozens of Stanford Medical School faculty members signed an open letter this week denouncing Dr. Scott Atlas — a former Stanford professor now serving as President Trump’s pandemic adviser — saying “many of his opinions and statements run counter to established science.” Michael Williams in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/20

 ✅California death toll tops 14,000, but new coronavirus cases continue to decline -- The cumulative death toll rose to 14,021, up by 31 from Wednesday, but overall the state has seen deaths flatten out and new reported cases trend downward. The seven-day average of new cases on Wednesday stood at 3,742, according to data compiled by The Times — the first time new cases dropped below 4,000 since June 21. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/20

 

✅High numbers of Los Angeles patients complained about coughs as early as December, study says -- The number of patients complaining of coughs and respiratory illnesses surged at a sprawling Los Angeles medical system from late December through February, raising questions about whether the novel coronavirus was spreading earlier than thought, according to a study of electronic medical records. Ben Guarino in the Washington Post$ -- 9/11/20